User blog:Dryson Bennington/Pilyhas-1 Construction Facility
Pilyhas-1 Construction Facility Design Log opened Thursday 28th January 2010 16:45 ZT (4:45) Dryson'' Bennington '''To facilitate mass production of the Pilyhas-1 class starship a construction facility would need to be built where the ships would be assembled in space. T'he modules for each ship would be launched to the construction facility via the ARES or CONSTELLATION delivery platforms. Once the modules had been delivered to the construction facility the construction crew would begin construction of each type of Pilyhas-1 ship. When finished each type of ship built would be taken on a trial run from the I.S.S. to the Moon and Mars where any engineering kinks would be hammered out. A seperate maintenance facility built exactly like the construction facility would be located in Lunar and Martian orbit to conduct repairs and upgrade or change out the various modules. The first truss that is the backbone of the entire construction facility is the Z(enith) 1 Truss. The Z1 truss will include four control moment gyros or CMG's that control the facilities attitude along with S-band and K-Band antennas for communications purposes and DC - DC converter units Z(enith) 1 Truss particulars: Length: 5.00 meters ( 17.6597.00 feet ) ''' '''Width: 4.00 meters (14.1278.00 feet ) Weight: 8.3 tonnes (16,600.00 pounds) Material Alloy: Aluminum Truss Communication's System S-Band Antenna The S-band communication system will send and receive construction facility operation data and voice data to and from Earth through the I.S.S.' S-Band antenna. K-Band Antenna The Ku-band communication system will send large amounts of various data to Earth obtained from cameras mounted on the construction facility that will include image, voice and a means of communicating between crew members of the local ORION Worker Pods so that clear and concise communications can be sent and received when assembling a Pilyhas-1 class starship. ''' '''Control Moment Gyro ( CMG) A CMG generates torque to control large spacecraft. It can generate larger angular momentum and torque than the reaction wheels (*1) used for satellite attitude control. ''''In a CMG, a flywheel(*2) attached to the gimbal(*3) is rotated at a constant speed (6,600rpm for ISS), 'generating a large angular momentum. Since the gimbal containing the flywheel tries to maintain a constant direction, any action by another motor to tilt this gimbal generates a large torque. This is the same gyro effect you can experience when spinning a toy top. The magnitude of this force is the product of the angular momentum of the flywheel and the rotation speed of the gimbal. This method can generate dozens of times greater torque than a reaction wheel. ' '''Common Berthing Mechanism One of the main hurdles that I had to overcome when designing the Pilyhas-1 was the docking method for each type of module to other modules as well as well as creating a mating component that would facilitate a universal means of connecting starship to station. The result t hat I found was the CBM or Common Berthing Mechanism. Once the connection is established, the CBM will Provide the resource connection such as, electrical power, communication signals, and fluid between the connected modules. It also serves as a path for the crew. A total of four CBMs will be mounted at each of the ports on the Unity node. ' '''Other types of docking mechanism's that will be used are the PMA's or Pressurized Mating Adapter. Pressurized Mating Adaptor or (PMA) 3 will provide a place for a HAWK or shuttle to dock with the construction facility. PMA-3 includes mechanical interfaces, spacewalk hardware and thermal control equipment, electrical power subsystem (EPS) and command and data handling (C&DH) passthroughs. ' '''Unity 1 Module/Pod The Unity Module was built by NASA, the predecessor to the many space faring private agencies that sprung up around the planet after Pandora, the first living habitat other than earth was found in the 22nd century. The Unity Module is a connecting module for many other types of modules that connect to the module at the CBM ports which the Unity has six berthings available for use. The Unity is also the docking berth for the shuttle and other service craft that frequent the construction station via a PMA or Pressurized Mating Adapter which creates a much better connection to the ship than the CBM, but because of the design's criteria of needing to keep the starship in a straight as possible linea r shape to avoid additional stress, the CBM's have been used with additional structural struts added to provide increased torsional support along the spine of the ship. The Unity 1 Module routes essential crew and station resources such as fluids, environmental control and life support systems, electrical and data systems to the two Habitation Extension Modules (HEM C and D) wh ich are berthed to the port and starboard side of Node 3. Node 3 contains the habitation equipment that enables a permanent crew of six people to live at the station. Node 3 is berthed at the nadir port of Unity one. Nadir refers to a point facing towards the bottom portion of a location The Z1 Truss is berthed at the Zenith or topmost location on the Unity 1 or uppermost location going away from Earth. The EVA Airlock is berthed to the starboard side or right side of the module. When approaching the Unity 1 Module from the fore of the module the airlock will be on the port side of the module. The EVA Airlock will provide the station construction crew the means to leave the crew area to inspect the facility via EVA's which are stored in the airlock. In case of emergency the crew can board the emergency Orion Abort Craft (OAC) and jettison away from the station to either return to Earth or dock with the I.S.S. The OAC is berthed to the aft section of the Unity One and is a standard Orion Module design. Category:Blog posts